Intifada in French suburbs, say police

BRUSSELS: Radical Muslims in France's housing estates are waging an undeclared intifada against police, some officers say, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day.

As the Interior Ministry said that about 2500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were "in a state of civil war" with criminal elements in the most depressed suburban estates, which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of North African origin.

It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the Government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the suburbs, which are becoming no-go zones.

Senior officers insisted the problem was essentially criminal in nature, with crime bosses on the estates fighting back against tough tactics.

The Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also the leading centre-right candidate for the presidency, has sent heavily equipped units into estates, with orders to regain control from drug smuggling gangs and other organised crime rings. Such aggressive raids were "disrupting the underground economy in the estates", Le Figaro quoted an official as saying.

Not all police officers accept that essentially secular interpretation. The secretary-general of the hardline trade union Action Police, Michel Thooris, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an intifada on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas. "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," Mr Thooris said on Wednesday.

But Gerard Demarcq, of the largest police union, Alliance, dismissed talk of an intifada as representing the views of only a minority of police.